3 Historic Hotels

 While walking around in the rain the other day I got pictures of 3 historic hotels.

Hotel Kansas City (aka 1922 Kansas City Club Building)

Their website shows beautiful rooms, $179 - $280 for the same day I looked it up.  The hotel also has 2 bars, coffee cafe and a restaurant.  This is a Hyatt Hotel.

We know the history of this building so I won't repeat.  If you don't please read the post on December 27, 2024 about the Kansas City Club.

The President

Built in 1925.  In 1928, it was the headquarters for the 1928 Republican National Convention, which nominated Herbert Hoover for President. 

The Drum Room was added to the hotel in 1941 and featured many well-known entertainers, including Sinatra and Patsy Cline.

When it opened, there were 453 rooms and now there are 213. The hotel closed in the 70s, it stayed vacant for 25 years. The city wanted to tear it down. A local owner, who was really passionate about the building, wanted to save it. The hotel was gutted to the bare walls, completely refurbished to the tune of $45 million dollars and reopened in 2006 as the Hilton President Kansas City. The 12,000-square-foot property kept many of the nuances of the old hotel.

At the beginning of 1935, a man using an assumed name at the time but later identified as Artemus Ogletree, was found severely assaulted in room 1046 after a two-day stay marked by odd behavior and interactions with a mysterious "Don"; he later died in the hospital. The case remains unsolved.

The Hotel President was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.

Also rooms ranged $160 - $280.

I copied this picture for the sign.

This sign was in the parking lot.

Kansas City Metropolitan Crime Commission

Began in 1949 to investigate corruption and in the 80s lead to Crime Stoppers.

The restaurant 

Distance picture with Hotel President and the Drum Room sign.

Last one - Hotel Muehlebach

When I went on the Roanoke Walking Tour the Muehlebachs once owned 2 homes there.  I have been interested in them since.

The Hotel Muehlebach is a historic hotel in downtown Kansas City that was visited by every President from Theodore Roosevelt to Ronald Reagan.  It is currently operated as one of the Kansas City Marriott Downtown wings.

A church was once built on this property.  Muehlebach bought the property in 1914, demolished the church and built a 12 story hotel at a cost of $2 million.  It opened in 1915.

 Barney Allis took over the hotel in 1931, and during his lengthy tenure, the hotel welcomed celebrities including Helen Keller, Ernest Hemingway, Babe Ruth, Jean Harlow (1931), Frank Sinatra, Bob Hope, Elvis Presley, Jimi Hendrix Experience and The Beatles

 Missouri-native Harry S. Truman stayed in the hotel’s Presidential Suite so frequently that the Muehlebach became known as White House West.

In 1952, a 17-story western annex, called the Muehlebach Tower (later torn down and then rebuilt), and a parking lot, were added to the hotel. Allis sold the hotel in the 1960s. The Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States foreclosed on the hotel in the early 1970s. In 1974, they renovated the hotel, at a cost of $7 million, and contracted with Minneapolis-based Radisson Hotels to manage the hotel. The hotel served as the headquarters for the 1976 Republican National Convention. It closed permanently in 1986.

Marriott bought the hotel in 1996.  The original 1915 Muehlebach building's lobby and ballrooms were restored and are now used as banquet and convention facilities by the Marriott. The original hotel guest room floors above have been gutted and remain unused

At one time this hotel consisted on 4 buildings.

Today it is just the hotel and the new tower that was built.

This was the rest of my walk in the rain yesterday. All 3 of the hotels are within a block of each other.  In fact 2 of the hotels are on opposite ends of the same block with The President across the street from Hotel Kansas City.  It's just crazy.

Until tomorrow.